“All Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.’’ This
comment , frequently heard after the Mumbai bomb blasts implies that terrorism
is a Muslim specialty, if not a monopoly. The facts are very different.

First, there is nothing new about terrorism. In 1881, anarchists killed the
Russian Tsar Alexander II and 21 bystanders. In 1901, anarchists killed US
President McKinley as well as King Humbert I of Italy. World War I started in
1914 when anarchists killed Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. These terrorist
attacks were not Muslim.

Terrorism is generally defined as the killing of civilians for political
reasons. Going by this definition, the British Raj referred to Bhagat Singh,
Chandrashekhar Azad and many other Indian freedom fighters as terrorists. These
were Hindu and Sikh rather than Muslim.

Guerrilla fighters from Mao Zedong to Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro killed
civilians during their revolutionary campaigns. They too were called terrorists
until they triumphed. Nothing Muslim about them.

In Palestine, after World War II, Jewish groups (the Haganah, Irgun and Stern
Gang) fought for the creation of a Jewish state, bombing hotels and
installations and killing civilians. The British, who then governed Palestine,
rightly called these Jewish groups terrorists. Many of these terrorists later
became leaders of independent Israel - Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem
Begin, Ariel Sharon. Ironically, these former terrorists then lambasted
terrorism, applying this label only to Arabs fighting for the very same
nationhood that the Jews had fought for earlier.

In Germany in 1968-92, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang killed dozens, including the
head of Treuhand, the German privatisation agency. In Italy, the Red Brigades
kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, former prime minister.

The Japanese Red Army was an Asian version of this. Japan was also the home
of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist cult that tried to kill thousands in the Tokyo
metro system using nerve gas in 1995.

In Europe, the Irish Republican Army has been a Catholic terrorist
organisation for almost a century. Spain and France face a terrorist challenge
from ETA, the Basque terrorist organisation.

Africa is ravaged by so much civil war and internal strife that few people
even bother to check which groups can be labelled terrorist. They stretch across
the continent. Possibly the most notorious is the Lord’s Salvation Army in
Uganda, a Christian outfit that uses children as warriors.

In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers have long constituted one of the most vicious
and formidable terrorist groups in the world. They were the first to train
children as terrorists. They happen to be Hindus. Suicide bombing is widely
associated with Muslim Palestinians and Iraqis, but the Tamil Tigers were the
first to use this tactic on a large scale. One such suicide bomber assassinated
Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

In India, the militants in Kashmir are Muslim. But they are only one of
several militant groups. The Punjab militants, led by Bhindranwale, were Sikhs.
The United Liberation Front of Assam is a Hindu terrorist group that targets
Muslims rather than the other way round. Tripura has witnessed the rise and fall
of several terrorist groups, and so have Bodo strongholds in Assam. Christian
Mizos mounted an insurrection for decades, and Christian Nagas are still heading
militant groups.

But most important of all are the Maoist terrorist groups that now exist in
no less than 150 out of India’s 600 districts. They have attacked police
stations, and killed and razed entire villages that oppose them. These are
secular terrorists (like the Baader Meinhof Gang or Red Brigades). In terms of
membership and area controlled, secular terrorists are far ahead of Muslim
terrorists.

In sum, terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly .

There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus,
Sikhs, and even Buddhists. Secular terrorists (anarchists, Maoists) have been
the biggest killers.

Why then is there such a widespread impression that most or all terrorist
groups are Muslim? I see two reasons. First, the Indian elite keenly follows the
western media, and the West feels under attack from Islamic groups. Catholic
Irish terrorists have killed far more people in Britain than Muslims, yet the
subway bombings in London and Madrid are what Europeans remember today. The
Baader Meinhof Gang, IRA and Red Brigades no longer pose much of a threat, but
after 9/11 Americans and Europeans fear that they could be hit anywhere anytime.
So they focus attention on Islamic militancy. They pay little notice to other
forms of terrorism in Africa, Sri Lanka or India: these pose no threat to the
West.

Within India, Maoists pose a far greater threat than Muslim militants in 150
districts, one-third of India’s area. But major cities feel threatened only by
Muslim groups. So the national elite and media focus overwhelmingly on Muslim
terrorism. The elite are hardly aware that this is an elite phenomenon.

Source: Times of India 23 July 2006.Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar is Consulting Editor, Economic Times and
writes regularly for the Economic Times and The Times of India. His articles can
also be seen at www.swaminomics.org